I waited for my father at The Bridge of the Americas which spaned the entrance to the Panama Canal. When he arrived, we agreed to meet on the other side of the bridge to plan our next move. He parked his car at the side of the road and, as we were making our plans, a police car pulled up and told us it was illegal to stop on the bridge. He then asked us to go on the off-ramp and park at the bottom where he wanted to give us a ticket. Welcome to Panama!

         He asked my father for the papers that are required to drive a car in Panama but, the car was such a mess that he was unable to find the required documents. As my father continued searching for about 15 minutes, another police officer arrived and they started pulling other cars over. After awhile, they gave up on us and told us to drive on.

         We then decided to try and find the Youth Hostel in the downtown area but soon were in a one-way nightmare. We stopped and asked for directions and someone in the store decided to go with my father and show him the way. I was to follow. We soon became separated and I spent the next hour driving up and down the one way streets. It was starting to get dark when I finally found the place. I locked up my bike beside my father's car and made my way up to the penthouse level of the apartment building. After cleaning up, we headed to the market area to buy food, then back to the hostel to cook supper. The fact that I had made it to Panama City had not really sunk in.

         On December 8, we decided to stay in Panama City and shoot some video. We figured out how to strap the bike to the roof of the car using a couple of roof racks, some nylon cord, duct tape, and rubber inner tubes. We then spent the day driving to various locations, unloading and loading the bike and taking video shots of me riding around. At one point, we were questioned by the police as to what we were doing but Dad won them over by saying what a beautiful city Panama was. They were impressed and left! We had lunch on the waterfront and continued shooting till it was almost dark.

         The next day, the plan was to see the Panama Canal. We made our way out of town to the first set of locks but it was crowded with tourists and had very little vantage points for pictures. We continued down the road, over the Continental Divide and arrived at Colon on the Caribbean Sea. As we were sitting in a park having lunch, I was approached by the local TV crew that wanted to do an interview and take some shots of me riding the bike to put on the news that night. We unloaded the bike and put all the camping gear and panniers back on as they took their shots.